Daphne Rubin-Vega, from Mimi in Rent to Stella in Streetcar

Daphne Rubin-Vega in her dressing room at “Streetcar Named Desire,” showing a picture of her mother, who died when the actress was ten. “I’m older now than she ever was.”

Daphne Rubin-Vega is appearing as Stella in a revival of Tennesee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire,” her fifth role on Broadway, 16 years after her first and best-known role as the original Mimi in Jonathan Larson’s “Rent.” Two qualities struck me about her when I interviewed her then, and they struck me again when I interviewed her recently for a profile in this month’s Playbill. She seems an unusually open and trusting person. She also has a wicked wit. Both I think are evident in the article.

She showed me the pictures in her dressing room, of her various families: There was one of her husband and son; another of her Streetcar family – Blair Underwood and the rest of the cast in a sepia-toned picture with an antique-looking gilt frame. Then there was another, actually antique photograph, of her mother as an infant with her large family in Panama. Throughout the room as well were pictures of her mother, who died when Daphne was 10.

It was after reading a letter from her mother, recently arrived from Panama, that she decided to write a one-woman show, entitled “Frequently Unanswered Questions,” which the LABrynth theater will be producing.